Parks Victoria has advised that aerial shooting programs targeting deer and other pest species (including feral pigs, goats and foxes) will be undertaken across parts of North East Victoria in late April and early May.
Closures will apply to:
- Burrowa-Pine Mountain National Park
- Mt Mittamatite (Mitta Mittamatite) Regional Park
- Mt Lawson State Park
- Wabba Wilderness Park
- Mt Granya State Park
- Granya Bushland Reserve
- Mountain Creek Education Area
- Pheasant Creek Flora Reserve
Operational dates:
- 29 April – 1 May 2026
- 4–8 May 2026
Further details, including park closure notices, are available via Parks Victoria’s “Change of Conditions” listings.
A tool in the toolbox
SSAA Victoria does not oppose aerial culling per se. It is one of several tools available for managing deer and other species, and in the right circumstances it can be effective.
Aerial shooting is particularly suited to situations where:
- terrain limits ground access,
- animals are widely dispersed or difficult to approach on foot, or
- there is a need for rapid intervention over large areas.
It can also be useful following major disturbance events such as bushfire, when deer may concentrate in regenerating areas and place additional pressure on recovering vegetation. In those circumstances, targeted aerial control can help suppress localised impacts.
For aerial culling to be effective, however, some fundamentals need to be in place:
- clear, outcome-based objectives
- targeted application, not broad low-intensity effort
- appropriate intensity for the task at hand
- follow-up control, including ground-based methods
- monitoring and reporting to assess results
Without these, aerial shooting risks becoming activity without measurable benefit.
Not in recreational hunting areas
It is important to be clear about where these operations are occurring.
The bulk of these areas are not open to recreational deer hunting. Many of the locations are remote or restricted public land where access is limited and where aerial methods may be one of the few practical options available.
This is not a case of aerial culling displacing recreational hunters at scale.
The problem of scale and impact
A key issue in Victoria is whether aerial programs are being designed and assessed in a way that delivers measurable environmental outcomes.
Based on the limited public reporting from previous operations aerial culling in Victoria has yielded results like:
- just under 2,000 deer were removed
- across a target area of approximately 2,600 km²
That equates to roughly:
0.75 deer removed per km²
On its own, that figure doesn’t tell us very much. What matters is where those animals were taken from, and whether their removal led to a meaningful reduction in localised impacts.
Higher deer impacts are typically associated with higher densities (often above ~3 deer per km² for sambar). Without clear spatial reporting, it is difficult to know whether effort was concentrated in those high-impact areas or spread more broadly.
What the available information suggests is that programs have been reported largely in terms of total numbers removed across large landscapes, rather than against clearly defined, localised objectives. From a management perspective, outcomes are driven by what happens in specific places – sensitive catchments, regenerating forest, high-value habitat – not by aggregate numbers.
The issue is not simply one of scale. It is that targeting, monitoring and reporting are not sufficiently clear to demonstrate that the work is achieving its stated aims. Don’t tell us how many deer you killed, show us what clear benefit that had.
Animal welfare and transparency
There are also legitimate questions around animal welfare outcomes and transparency.
Research examining aerial culling programs in Australia has identified wide variability in animal welfare outcomes, influenced by:
- shooter accuracy and protocols
- terrain and vegetation
- follow-up procedures for wounded animals
Other states publish detailed operational data, including:
- numbers culled
- flight hours and effort
- follow-up and dispatch rates
- cost-effectiveness
- in some cases, spatial reporting of where effort was concentrated
Victoria has not consistently provided this level of detail.
If aerial culling is to maintain public confidence, there is a strong case for:
- greater transparency
- consistent, detailed public reporting
- clear articulation of objectives and how success is measured
- independent evaluation of both environmental and welfare outcomes
Without that, it is difficult for stakeholders, including hunters and the broader community, to assess whether programs are working as intended.
“Why do I pay for a game licence?”
There is a common refrain amongst hunters whenever aerial culling is raised: “Why am I paying for a game licence if deer are being shot from helicopters?”
It’s a fair question, but it rests on a misunderstanding of how the system works.
First, the Game Management Authority (GMA) has no role in these aerial shooting programs. These operations are conducted by Parks Victoria as part of its land management and biodiversity protection responsibilities. They sit entirely outside the recreational hunting framework.
A game licence is not a fee paid to ‘own’ or exclusively control deer. It is a contribution towards:
- participating in a regulated public land hunting system,
- maintaining access to millions of acres of public land,
- supporting compliance, education and administration, and
- ensuring hunting continues to operate with public confidence and social licence.
That access is significant. Victoria is the only state in Australia that provides broad, low-cost public land access to deer hunting at scale. That is underpinned by a regulated system, and that system is funded in part by licence holders.
Why game status matters
Deer being classified as game in Victoria is both appropriate and important.
It recognises that deer are:
- a legitimate recreational resource,
- pursued by tens of thousands of licensed hunters, and
- part of a managed system, not simply treated as unregulated pests.
Game status brings with it:
- licensing and accountability
- clear rules around methods and ethics
- a framework that supports safe, sustainable and publicly acceptable hunting
Just as importantly, it is critical that game licensing exists alongside, not as an impediment to control efforts.
There is no inherent conflict between:
- maintaining deer as a game species, and
- undertaking targeted control programs where they are needed.
Many jurisdictions around the world successfully do both. The key is ensuring that recreational hunting remains the primary, ongoing management tool where it is effective, while other methods, such as aerial culling, are used strategically, transparently and in clearly defined circumstances.
Without a game-based framework, access to public land hunting becomes far more fragile. With it, you have a system that supports both ongoing management through hunting and targeted intervention when required.
The risk of “everywhere is a problem”
A further challenge in Victoria is the way deer impacts are often framed in public debate.
There is a persistent narrative from some activist groups that all deer, everywhere, are inherently harmful and require uniform control. While that may be rhetorically effective, it is not how good wildlife management works.
Impacts are not evenly distributed across the landscape. They are:
- highly localised,
- driven by habitat, water, and disturbance,
- often concentrated in specific high-value or sensitive areas, and
- vary along a spectrum from benign to extreme
Effective management therefore requires prioritisation – focusing effort where impacts are acute and where intervention will deliver the greatest environmental benefit.
Broad, non-specific calls to “reduce deer everywhere” risk doing the opposite. They can create pressure on land managers and governments to:
- spread effort thinly across large areas,
- prioritise total numbers over targeted outcomes, and
- undertake visible activity rather than strategically focused work.
That approach is unlikely to deliver meaningful improvements for biodiversity.
By contrast, evidence-based deer management is about:
- identifying where impacts are occurring,
- understanding why they are occurring, and
- applying the right tools, in the right places, at the right time.
That includes recreational hunting, ground-based control, and aerial methods – each used where they are most effective.
The real challenge is not the existence of different management tools, or the classification of deer as game. It is ensuring that decision-making remains grounded in evidence, prioritisation and measurable outcomes, rather than broad, one-size-fits-all narratives.
Where to from here?
Aerial culling has a role in deer management in Victoria, but it is not a silver bullet (no pun intended).
To be credible and effective, programs need to be:
- clearly targeted
- properly monitored
- transparently reported
- integrated with other management tools
Used well, aerial culling can help manage deer in difficult terrain and sensitive environments. But like any tool, its value is determined by how it is applied, and how openly its outcomes are measured and reported.
More broadly, Victoria needs to move beyond its current failed Deer Control Strategy and towards a genuine Deer Management Strategy – one that is grounded in evidence, prioritisation and measurable outcomes.
That means properly recognising and utilising the state’s most engaged and active stakeholder group: recreational hunters.
Done properly, this is not an either/or proposition. A modern deer management framework should:
- mitigate negative environmental impacts where they occur, while also
- growing the positive social and economic benefits that come from a well-managed, accessible hunting system.
Victoria has the foundations to get this right. What’s needed now is a shift to targeted, accountable management that backs in hunters as part of the solution – not an afterthought. Done properly, deer can be managed where they cause real damage, while continuing to deliver real benefits to regional communities.
